Paper Dialogues

Paper Dialogues at Kir Royal (Valencia, Spain) is a new exhibition created in collaboration with PAPER, presenting the work of eight artists who explore a variety of means of producing work on paper.

PAPER

Jul 1st – Sep 10th 2016

Online Exclusive

Press Release

Paper Dialogues at Kir Royal is a new exhibition created in collaboration with PAPER (Manchester, UK) presenting the work of seven artists who explore a variety of means of producing work on paper. Paper is conceived as a means of expression and dialogue. It can be used not only as a support, but also as a material (for example in case of collages and paper-cuts). On paper is where most of the artists trace their sketches and ideas, but it is also, in the case of these eight artists, the support for their final artworks. The tactility of paper is something with which each of us is familiar; paper is something that we have used in our daily life since childhood. Paper was the support for our first means of expression, and in each of the works in this exhibition, each artist creates a dialogue of their relationship with paper.

The artworks selected for Paper Dialogues do not correspond to a specific curatorial criterion; they simply depict the array of possibilities that artists can apply to paper. Joaquin Artime, a multi-discipline artist working across performance and time-based media, uses drawings as documentation of his actions. Moreover, he often connects the technique to the performance itself, particularly in his performance, Veneno, where Artime spits out Chinese ink that he later reuses in his drawings. The purpose of his drawing is to record the reality of the event, expressing the intensity of any single moment.

Lisa Wilkens’ work is fundamentally based in drawing and the understanding and exploration of images, their reproduction, and development through drawing. With a strong interest in the photographic image – as cultural object of representing ‘what is/was’ – she sees her practice as a means for analysis, a method to understand and process images. Choosing images of international affairs, online news and archives, her drawings can offer a new form of reading located between personal stories and political histories.

Lisa Denyer's process derives from everyday observations, and the subsequent abstraction of certain imagery through painting. Each piece begins with careful considerations around colour, which often evolve into prolonged investigations over a series. Denyer is interested in the idea of interventions, whether accidental, intentional, natural or human. Her work explores matter, materiality and changing states.

The focus of Tracey Eastham's work is her continued interest in the façade of reproduced imagery of traditional British landscapes. Eastham is interested in the illusion that these images portray, presenting a sense of the picturesque lost in time. She transforms these images into fantastical amorphous forms, intricately cut from thin gold paper. Her work, whether suspended in bell jars or frames, preserve this quaint idealised myth, whilst simultaneously underlining the contrast between ruins and luxury.

Omega TBS (born Mario Cosín), has a style that is rich in detail, representing scenes with a strong narrative power. The artist aims to express his personal vision of society, paying more attention to the dark side of human nature. His characters, somewhere between human and animal, are depicted in daily situations and offer caricatures of different typologies of the contemporary man.

There is an absurd logic to the watercolours of Paraic Leahy, a sort of magic realism that deviates from the familiar. The mutations present in these portraits are implausible and outlandish, yet obedient to certain mathematical principles we might call unifying laws.

Jose Luis Serzo creates fantastical worlds that transcend reality and are populated by strange and invented beings. Serzo’s work suggests a potential to transform a mundane reality into a new dimension. His work is filled with personal symbols; his characters lead us to strange and marvellous places full of colour, magic, and humour.